RE: Xwar

From: Cunningham, Donald (cunningh@indiana.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 01 2001 - 12:26:25 PDT


Does anyone remember Lakoff's email that he sent just prior to the Gulf War
where he did an analysis of the metaphors of war? I still have a copy if
anyone is interested. It is still timely. Here is the first paragraph:

"Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether we should go to
war in the gulf is a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State
Baker sees Saddam as ``sitting on our economic lifeline.''
President Bush sees him as having a ``stranglehold'' on our econ-
omy. General Schwartzkopf characterizes the occupation of Kuwait
as a ``rape'' that is ongoing. The President says that the U. S. is
in the gulf to ``protect freedom, protect our future, and protect
the innocent'', and that we must ``push Saddam Hussein back.''
Saddam is seen as Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to
understand just what role metaphorical thought is playing in
bringing us to the brink of war. Metaphorical thought, in it-
self, is neither good nor bad; it is simply commonplace and ines-
capable. Abstractions and enormously complex situations are rou-
tinely understood via metaphor. Indeed, there is an extensive,
and mostly unconscious, system of metaphor that we use automati-
cally and unreflectively to understand complexities and abstrac-
tions. Part of this system is devoted to understanding interna-
tional relations and war. We now know enough about this system to
have an idea of how it functions. The metaphorical understanding
of a situation functions in two parts. First, there is a
widespread, relatively fixed set of metaphors that structure how
we think. For example, a decision to go to war might be seen as
a form of cost-benefit analysis, where war is justified when the
costs of going to war are less than the costs of not going to
war. Second, there is a set of metaphorical definitions that that
allow one to apply such a metaphor to a particular situation. In
this case, there must be a definition of ``cost'', including a
means of comparing relative ``costs''. The use of a metaphor
with a set of definitions becomes pernicious when it hides reali-
ties in a harmful way. It is important to distinguish what is
metaphorical from what is not. Pain, dismemberment, death, star-
vation, and the death and injury of loved ones are not metaphori-
cal. They are real and in a war, they could afflict tens,
perhaps hundreds of thousands, of real human beings, whether Ira-
qi, Kuwaiti, or American."

-----Original Message-----
From: blantonw@miami.edu [mailto:blantonw@miami.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 12:05 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Xwar

Mike

It appears that some of the the community might like to engage in discussion
about America's war on terrorism. Others seem to want to begin the
discussion of the crisis in psychology. Perhaps this is a time to bring bac
the xwar discussion list.

Cordially

Bill Blanton
William E. Blanton
Department of Teaching and Learning
319 H Merrick
School of Education
P. O. Box 248065
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL 33124-2040

Blantonw@miami.edu
T el 305.284.5053
Fax 305.284.6998 or 305.284.3003



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